AbstractComplex systems demand diversity in the modeling mechanisms. One way to deal with a diversity of requirements is to create flexible modeling frameworks that can be adapted to cover the field of interest. The downside of this approach is a weakening of the semantics of the modeling frameworks that compromises interoperability, understandability, and analyzability of the models. An alternative approach is to embrace heterogeneity and to provide mechanisms for a diversity of models to interact. This paper reviews an approach that achieves such interaction between diverse models using an abstract semantics, which is a deliberately incomplete semantics that cannot by itself define a useful modeling framework. It instead focuses on the interactions between diverse models, reducing the nature of those interactions to a minimum that achieves a well-defined composition. An example of such an abstract semantics is the actor semantics, which can handle many heterogeneous models that are built today, and some that are not common today. The actor abstract semantics and many concrete semantics have been implemented in Ptolemy II, an open-source software framework distributed
under a BSD-style license.

@inproceedings{Lee10_DisciplinedHeterogeneousModeling,
author = {Edward A. Lee},
title = {Disciplined Heterogeneous Modeling},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM/IEEE 13th International
Conference on Model Driven Engineering, Languages,
and Systems (MODELS)},
editor = {D.C. Petriu, N. Rouquette, O. Haugen},
organization = {LNCS 6395, Springer-Verlag},
pages = {273-287},
day = {3},
month = {October},
year = {2010},
abstract = {Complex systems demand diversity in the modeling
mechanisms. One way to deal with a diversity of
requirements is to create flexible modeling
frameworks that can be adapted to cover the field
of interest. The downside of this approach is a
weakening of the semantics of the modeling
frameworks that compromises interoperability,
understandability, and analyzability of the
models. An alternative approach is to embrace
heterogeneity and to provide mechanisms for a
diversity of models to interact. This paper
reviews an approach that achieves such interaction
between diverse models using an abstract
semantics, which is a deliberately incomplete
semantics that cannot by itself define a useful
modeling framework. It instead focuses on the
interactions between diverse models, reducing the
nature of those interactions to a minimum that
achieves a well-defined composition. An example of
such an abstract semantics is the actor semantics,
which can handle many heterogeneous models that
are built today, and some that are not common
today. The actor abstract semantics and many
concrete semantics have been implemented in
Ptolemy II, an open-source software framework
distributed under a BSD-style license.},
URL = {http://chess.eecs.berkeley.edu/pubs/679.html}
}

Notice:
This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly
and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by
authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this
information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints
invoked by each author's copyright.